Windwalker Chronicles
August 5, 2007

We are no longer headed north. We only go to Chapter 5 (out of 10) in our Exploring Southeast Alaska book, so we will have many new places to explore next summer. We left Juneau this morning and will retrace some of our steps, since the weather forecast for Chatham Strait (where we wanted to go) was snotty. Not the word the forecasters used, but they should have. It ain’t too good for Stephens Passage either, but there are more places to hide, and the sea-state prediction is for three feet instead of six.

From long-ago Wrangell, Windwalker transited the often-busy Wrangell Narrows. Virtually all pleasure boats, the Alaska Ferries, and most of the tugs and barges use this route, so when you make your transit, your eyes must be directed out the window most of the time, our cruising guide warned us. Good advice, but wasted on sailors. The book has a full page and a half dedicated to the twenty-one-mile long Narrows with its 60 navigation aids and five sets of range markers. The Gods of Small Boats were with us; our four-hour transit was noteworthy for its lack of moments of sheer terror. My kind of cruising.

(065, 081, 077) In Petersburg, our destination at the north end of the Narrows, Windwalker was assigned moorage with the big boys, the handsome seiners and gill-netters. As we came down the fairway, a sea lion was enjoying an all-you-can-eat salmon buffet, diving and throwing his sizeable body out of the water as he played with his food. And did I mention that the Sun Was Shining? We like Petersburg.

We planned to stay in Petersburg two days, but our boat maintenance skills resulted in a longer visit. Fortunately, ‘tis a nice town to shop for shower sump pumps and wait for Alaska Airlines to overnight-freight (Oh. Did you expect it the NEXT day?) two impellers from Fisheries Supply in Seattle. We had an extra impeller, but needed to use it, and that left us impeller-less. You don’t want to leave home without one. Next year we’ll bring three or four.

Our acutely impaired trouble-shooting skills have resulted in replacing things that are not actually broken. (Shower sump pump). Additionally, we have been directly responsible for some critical parts breaking. (Impeller.) I think that we may need a guardian on the next trip.

Petersburg is a Poulsbo that has remained a fishing town. We enjoyed the smoked salmon, the friendly people, the lack of cruise ships, and the bookstore, as well as the picturesque town itself and the gorgeous setting. Oh! I got my hair cut by Ellie at Locks By The Docks. You can learn a great deal about a town during a thirty-minute haircut. And, as a bonus, I don’t look like the wife in the comic strip Lockhorns. At least, not the hair.

Far-way Juneau was our goal as we headed north. We anchored the first night in what we thought was a secure anchorage. The Douglas book said nothing about the fact that on anything but a minimal tidal exchange, the current ripped across the sand spit. As the sun set, Windwalker had wind and whitecaps on her stern and a strong current on her nose. I slept with the handheld GPS so I could check our position each time I woke up. The anchor held and we headed out the next morning for more exciting adventures at sea.

(VII 094, 093, 099) Our first iceberg and two glaciers! Neither Baird nor Sundum are tidewater glaciers, but they are impressive. From talking to people, we had learned about berggie bits, the little iceberg chunketts that eat propellers, so were cautious as we approached the larger icebergs in Tracy Arm. In retrospect, approaching them was, to quote Doug, “A stupid-assed thing to do” since our depth sounder went from 400 feet to 60 feet. We were on top of part of the iceberg. We’re placing an ad in the Seattle Times for that guardian. VII 105

After spending the night at Tracy Arm Cove, the only place to anchor if you want to make the twenty-five trip up Tracy Arm to view North and South Sawyer Glaciers, we decided to continue north. The RAINRAINRAIN did not make the 50-mile round trip sound inviting. As we left the cove and headed toward the two navigation buoys making the channel to Stephen’s Passage, a Holland American ship steamed past. Those people were warm and dry!

Even with the binoculars, we could not see the green buoy (they are often dragged off-station by the ice bergs). We did see big waves, but thought it was the wake from the Holland American ship. Not so. They were standing waves at the entrance; we were in the middle of a three-knot ebb current surging down that twenty-five mile fjord and rushing through a small opening at a speed much faster than three knots. (This is a huge shallow bay with moraines on both sides, limiting the navigatable channel.) We were into the current before we realized what was happening. Doug turned Windwalker 180 degrees and we willed the GPS to tell us that we were making headway, as we watched the speed-over-ground readout. Slowly the numbers increased from 0.3 as we got into deeper water and we were able to exhale.

An hour later, we returned to the site of our indiscretion, and motored between the two now-visible buoys in calm water.

While at anchor in Tracy Arm Cove, Doug had read to me about the marinas and places of interest in Juneau, which was only a (long) day away. As we headed north in the RAINRAINRAIN I re-read the information. That guardian we’re hiring needs to be able to Pay Attention When Someone Reads To You. To reach Harris Harbor or Aurora Basin, you pass under Douglas Bridge, which has a minimum height of 50 feet. 50 feet. Windwalker does not do 50 feet. She’d be nervous at 65. What to do? There is a small boat basin on the other side of Gastineau Channel (isn’t that a great name?) but it sounded marginal. As I read this, we were passing the entrance to Taku Harbor, an anchorage that offers some of the best protection between Juneau and the south end of Stephens Passage. Hard starboard rudder and we cruised into a large bay with a State Park dock and sailboat from Juneau! Magick’s skipper advised us to go “around the corner from Juneau” (twenty miles) to Auke Bay. Local knowledge is our friend.

(134) Coming into Auke Bay the next day, we could see the Mendenhall Glacier behind the marina. Beautiful setting. Auke Bay is the largest of the facilities in the greater Juneau area. Facilities include 7,672 (not a Jean number) of open moorage space. Reservations are accepted for vessels lager than 50 feet in length. What a crazy place. The entry in our log says “Yikes!” The outside breakwater had a number of 70 to 120 foot-plus yachts on both sides. Inside were more large yachts, plebian pleasure-craft, commercial fishing boats, and a gazillion sports fishing boats. The little boats were coming and going continually, but nary a 41 food spot was available. Finally, a larger boat left, and Windwalker settled in behind two commercial fishing boats. The female skipper off one of the boats started giving us a hard time because we are yachties, but it was just a façade; they were very helpful during our stay.

We took the thirty-minute city bus to Juneau to tour the capitol as well as the city and state museums. Alaska’s history and politics are fascinating. Juneau has a more varied collection of shops on the waterfront than Ketchikan, but we were unable to find anything we needed….except my Death by Chocolate ice cream cone. A rental car the next day took us to various hardware and plumbing shops until we found a fellow who could create a new shower hose for our head. This was the second time on the trip we had to replace it. ‘Sounds like we’re really clean people, showering all the time. Maybe we’ll just opt for Baby-wipes if the new one breaks.

(144) The rental car then took us to Costco (we wanted to re-provision before heading back to Canada where we found everything Very Expensive) and finally, the Mendenhall Glacier. Much more interesting than Costco. The glacier looked huge, old, and cold and not at all impressed by the people who were tromping about taking its picture. The day before (when it was sunny), we had seen if from the bus, and it looked much happier.

When we got back to Windwalker, the skipper of the sports fishing boat across from was filleting a 100-pound halibut caught by a guest who had arrived from Cincinnati that afternoon. I asked him what he was going to the next day. That’s hard to top. The fisherman shared a huge chunk of his fish with us, and hurried off to have the rest of it frozen and shipped home.

Before we left Bainbridge, Joan told me that friends of theirs were going to be in Alaska aboard their sailboat, Shingabis. Well, yes, I’m sure we’ll see them. It’s such a small area. Lo and behold. Do you suppose that is their boat? How many Shingabis’s do you suppose there are in Alaska??? We introduced ourselves to Maxine and Larry, and spent two entertaining evenings sharing stories and libations. They went “off-shore” when they were 60! and have been sailing for the last fifteen years: the Med, both the capes, Iceland, Greenland, New Zealand, and Australia. The list is long. And we thought that we were doing well to get to Juneau….

Picutres are in reverse order!!!

Still trying to get this right (Jean's sister)